The Wire

October 21, 2005 6:26 AM

The WireThis award winning CBC radio series incorporates interviews, music and sound to explore the impact of electricity on music, from Edison to Caruso to Les Paul to Bjork. Exhaustively researched and beautifully produced, it's somewhere between a documentary, a remix and a music show. The home site has excerpts, playlists, and the remix from each show, but you can listen to all eight episodes in their entirely at PRX (you'll need to login first).
posted by Turtles all the way down (16 comments total)

A bit of pendantry from the Scandinavian perspective, but her name is Björk, not Bjork. Ö and o are completely different letters. You wouldn't write Carusö, so why write Bjork?
posted by three blind mice at 6:47 AM on October 21, 2005

tbm, perhaps, like myself, Turtles doesn't know how to type "Björk" (I copied and pasted from you) because diactriticals are hard to use on your typical American Windows setup. Lacking an easier option, we replace the letters with the most similar American English equivalent. Ergo Bjork, Curacao, Pokemon and, for that matter, Motley Crue.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:11 AM on October 21, 2005

No, FOB, I'm guilty. Thanks TBM, and a bit of pedantry right back atcha! ;-P
posted by Turtles all the way down at 7:13 AM on October 21, 2005

Well, gee, Turtles, see if I ever leap to your defense again... (Kidding, kidding!)
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:23 AM on October 21, 2005

My favourite CBC Radio show at the moment is Wiretap. The premise is that you are listening in on the phone calls of this guy, Jonathon Goldstein. It might sound dumb, but he is very funny, in a very dry way. Unfortunately, you can't download it.
posted by teg at 7:41 AM on October 21, 2005

Touché Turtles all the way down. Pedantry - and the spelling lesson - accepted. Björk (which means Birch tree) is a beautiful sounding name. Bjork sounds vulgar.

And sorry for the derail. It's one of my pet peeves. I hate seeing the rich diversity of foreign languages confined to the measly 26 letters of the English alphabet.
posted by three blind mice at 8:09 AM on October 21, 2005

So can you give us ignorant North Americans an idea of the way each sounds?
posted by Turtles all the way down at 8:15 AM on October 21, 2005

teg: I totally agree about Wiretap. You don't quite know what you're listening to when you first encounter the show--is it real? Is it some funny guy riffing with his friends? Brilliant concept and very well written and performed.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 8:18 AM on October 21, 2005

The best part visual part of this piece's interface is the overall flickering that is built into various parts of it...reminds one of electrical current.
posted by WildThang at 8:23 AM on October 21, 2005

Wiretap is awesome. Yes, it's too bad the CBC doesn't just podcast everything. The Wire is good too, though again, it's not always on when I'm willing to listen... ah CBC, can't you just go all-podcast? And have a computerized Promo Girl to give me my own custom schedule.
posted by GuyZero at 8:29 AM on October 21, 2005

Turtles all the way down. Here is an MP3 of the name/word Björk in Swedish. (Press on the loudspeaker icon). If you listen carefully, you will hear something in between "Byork" and "Byerk." It isn't one or the other and that's what makes it a unique sound. The artist Björk is from Iceland and it probably sounds a bit different in Islandic.

Bjork isn't a word so there isn't an entry for it.
posted by three blind mice at 8:40 AM on October 21, 2005

Sorry bad link. Go here, type in the word Björk and it will take you to the page with the MP3.
posted by three blind mice at 8:42 AM on October 21, 2005

Excuse the intrusion, but what FOB means? (as in " No, FOB, I'm guilty. Thanks TBM, and a bit ... ")
posted by CRESTA at 11:43 AM on October 21, 2005

Excuse the intrusion, but what FOB means?

In this case, Faint of Butt.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 12:02 PM on October 21, 2005

AH! Stupid me!... I should it read closer. thank you
posted by CRESTA at 12:10 PM on October 21, 2005

Unofficial Wiretap radio program archives (mp3s). Not to be confused with The Wire, which this post was originally about...

link
posted by sunexplodes at 12:32 PM on October 21, 2005